Stargate is an arcade game released in 1981 by Williams Electronics. Created by Eugene Jarvis, it is a sequel to the 1980 game Defender, and was the first of only three productions from Vid Kidz, an independent development house formed by Jarvis and Larry DeMar. This video game has no connection to the subsequent Stargate franchise that began 13 years later.

Legal issues

The game is also known as Defender Stargate and Defender II. The latter name was used in home video game releases, due to legal issues (according to the bonus material for Midway Arcade Treasures, Williams wanted to "make sure they could own the trademark" on the Defender name). The name Defender II has been used on all of its home ports, and game compilation appearances; however, there were never any Defender II arcade units. To complicate matters, the Atari 2600 port was originally sold under the Stargate moniker but was renamed to Defender II for a later re-release.

This sequel adds new enemy ships to the alien fleet such as firebombers, Yllabian Space Guppies (note that Yllabian is based on "Yllab", the word "Bally" spelled backwards, a friendly poke at Williams' then-competitor, Bally Midway), Dynamos and Space Hums. The Defender ship is now equipped with an Inviso cloaking device, which renders the ship invulnerable when activated, but has a limited charge. A Stargate will transport the ship to any humanoid in trouble. There are now two special stages, the Firebomber Showdown and the Yllabian Dogfight, that occur every fifth and tenth wave. As in the first game, if all the humans are captured the planet explodes and turns all the landers into mutants.

The game is much harder than its predecessor.

Gameplay

The player flies a small spaceship above a long, mountainous landscape. The land is inhabited by a small number of humanoids. The landscape wraps around, so flying constantly in one direction will eventually bring the player back to their starting point. The players ship can fly through the landscape without being destroyed.

A number of enemy ships fly over the landscape. The player's responsibilities are twofold:

Destroy all aliens
Protect the humans from being captured

The player is armed with a beam-like weapon which can be fired rapidly in a long horizontal line ahead of the spaceship, and also has a limited supply of smart bombs, which can destroy every enemy on the screen. The player also has a limited supply of "Inviso" cloaking energy, which makes the ship invisible, and able to destroy any ships it comes in contact with.

At the top of the screen is a radar-like scanner, which displays the positions of all aliens and humans on the landscape.